A man who stabbed and killed his brother in a drunken row over £1 has been jailed for four years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Michael O'Grady killed his brother Stephen in their parents' one-bedroom flat because the dead man handed him back only £1 instead of the £2 he had given him to buy more cider.
O'Grady (29) of Chamber Court, Dublin, pleaded guilty last July to committing the manslaughter at Chamber Court on February 7th, 1998. He had no previous convictions.
The court heard he variously told gardai he acted in self-defence after his brother tried to cut his throat, and that his father first attacked him with the knife. He eventually admitted he stabbed his brother after they fought on the floor.
He had given the £2 to his brother to buy a two-litre bottle of cider from their sister but when she refused to sell it to them, Stephen handed back only £1.
They then had a fight over this and shortly afterwards he got a knife from the kitchen and plunged it into Stephen's chest.
Judge Elizabeth Dunne was told that the victim had a alcohol-blood ratio of 400:100 which was enough to kill a person without a high tolerance of alcohol.
Det Insp Declan Coburn said O'Grady's parents lived in sheds and corridors in Ballymun for years due to their excessive drinking problem before they got the small flat at Chamber Court.
O'Grady said he hated going to the flat because they drank all day there. On the night of the stabbing there was extensive fighting between his parents and his brother who tried to stop them.
O'Grady cried when told by gardai his brother had died in hospital and said: "You are joking. He can't be dead. It was self-defence. I didn't mean to do it."
Det Insp Coburn said O'Grady himself had consumed a lot of drink during the day.
Defence counsel Mr Anthony Sammon SC submitted that his client came from an utterly dysfunctional family with gross alcohol problems.
Judge Dunne said Det Insp Declan Coburn had found it was not correct to say the fight between the two brothers happened at the time of the knifing incident as Michael O'Grady had suggested.
The deceased never had a knife in his possession.
She concluded it was therefore not an act of self-defence and will review the sentence in 12 months' time.